Curacy in the of Lichfield

Title post in the Middle , Choral of Tradition: civic church for

Holy Cross, St Peter’s Shrewsbury Middle Churchmanship, Informal Worship: serving an area of significant social need Welcome to Lichfield Diocese

Cradled at the intersection of the Midlands and the Shropshire, to the sparsest upland communities of North, and the interface between and the Moorlands and Welsh Borders. Wales, the is the ancient centre And we embrace the widest spectrum of church of Christianity in what was the Kingdom of Mercia. traditions – evangelical and catholic, liberal and We are rightfully grateful for the inheritance we conservative, choral and charismatic, as we journey have from St Chad that leads us to focus on together – as a colleague recently put it, it is our Discipleship, Vocation and Evangelism as we live goal to be a ‘spacious and gracious diocese’. and serve among the communities of Staffordshire, northern Shropshire and the Black Country. ‘…a spacious and Wherever in the Diocese you may be placed, you will benefit from being part of a wider family, gracious diocese.’ mixing with people serving in a wide variety of contexts – from the grittiest inner-city It is my determination and that of my fellow-

neighbourhoods of Stoke and the Black Country, to bishops that your calling to a title post will be a the leafiest rural of Staffordshire and time of encouragement, ongoing formation, challenge and (while rarely unbridled) joy. Our As we follow Christ in the footsteps of St Chad, we pray that colleagues among the Diocesan staff keenly bring the two million people in our diocese encounter a Church that their various specialisms both spiritual and practical to serve our parishes, fresh expressions, schools and is confident in the gospel, knows and loves its communities, chaplaincies. and is excited to find God already at work in the world. We pray for a church that reflects the richness and variety of those communities. We pray for a Church that partners with others in +Rt Revd Dr Michael Ipgrave seeking the common good, working for justice as a people of hope. (Diocesan Vision Statement) 2

A caring diocese higher education centres can be Lichfield Diocese is one of the largest in the found in Stoke, Keele, Stafford, country, covering an area of 1744 square miles and Shrewsbury, Telford, Wolverhampton serving a population of more than 2 million. and Walsall.

The Diocese consists of three episcopal areas with Vocation and mission of all three Area Bishops (of Wolverhampton, Stafford Our vision for the Diocese is that all and Shrewsbury) ministering alongside the people, lay and ordained alike, will Diocesan Bishop, each overseeing a different grow ever more deeply into their geographic area. This indicates the Diocese’s vocation as disciples of Christ. We commitment to its different contexts, and to the hope to become a Church where all our members “Our time as a family in my pastoral care of our clergy. are equipped to know they are called by God to curacy in rural Shropshire worship and to be the has been one of the best of Homes and schools eyes, hands, feet and our lives. I’ve learned that We aim to provide high mouth of Christ in their the priestly role is vital in quality housing for our own contexts. the community. I’m clergy with a continuous particularly enjoying To further these aims, and programme of working with seniors, and to develop creative improvements to houses enabling the giftings of patterns of ministry, we ask and responsive, specialist others which resulted in a all training parishes to contractors for successful Messy Church offer ‘sixth-day’ emergencies. starting in one of the opportunities for curates – villages. I give thanks to which might be a God for this special time, chaplaincy attachment and for everyone who’s As well as the 208 Church (school, hospital, prison or been there for me and of England schools in the hospice), involvement with local gardening supported me throughout.” Diocese, there are many good schools and colleges ventures, night-shelter involvement – to mention that will welcome clergy’ children, and a number of just a few possibilities. Revd Jassica Castillo-Burley 3

Everything but the sea

Staffordshire prides itself on being ‘the Creative Road and rail links County’: Shropshire is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and the Black Country is renowned for its industry and all have significant opportunities for spouses who wish to develop careers in any sphere.

David Rayner (Wikipedia) / Stoke-on- Trent Bottle Kiln / CC BY-SA 2.0 For those days off when you need space away from the parish, the area has everything you could wish for – except the sea: wild landscapes, cultured museums and stately homes. Sports of many kinds (including Premiership football) and at least two

theme parks For those with family and friends in other parts of the country, the Diocese has great transport links: Shrewsbury Flax Mill – the prototype skyscraper / Tk420 (Wikipedia) / CC BY-SA 4.0 the M6/M6Toll bisects the centre of the Diocese north-south, and the M5 originates at our southern

Opening of the Lighthouse Project at tip. Heading west, the A5/M54 give easy access to Kingsland CE Academy, Bucknall north and mid Wales, while the A50, A5 and M6Toll give swift access to the M1, M42 and A38 for the East Midlands and the south-east.

Rail links are also good with all major towns having direct services to London and Birmingham and four major airports surround our borders – Birmingham, East Midlands, Manchester and Liverpool.

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many museums including Walsall’s New Art Gallery and the RAF museum at Cosford; not to mention excellent sporting options for both watching and participating – from premiership football to the Tamworth Snowdome. Along with Wedgwood, theatres and cinemas, restaurants and superb tea Wulfrun Centre in Wolverhampton is one shops just begging to be discovered… of many shopping destinations in the region © Roger Kidd -/ Dovedale (location of one of the Diocese’s two residential retreat geograph.org.uk/p/1171894/ CC BY 2.0 centres) / Shaun Dunmall (wikipedia) / CC BY-SA 2.0 Leisure and pleasure Lichfield Diocese has everything but the sea. For walkers and climbers, there’s an extensive network of canals, Cannock Chase, The Roaches, and the Shropshire—Welsh borders (for example). If you’re into more organised fun, Alton Towers and Drayton Manor Theme Park can provide it. And then there’s

Wightwick Manor nr Wolverhampton / Tony Hisgett (Wikipedia) / CC BY-SA 4.0 Apedale Valley Light Railway nr Stoke is one of many transport and leisure museums in the Diocese / Simon Jones Alton Towers near Uttoxeter Jeremy Thompson/Flickr / CC BY 2.0 If shopping is your thing, there is a range of options, from the chic boutiques at Barton Marina, and Shrewsbury to large malls in or near the urban centres. We’re fortunate in being the home of many fine ales and beers brewed in Burton on Trent (the museum is well worth a visit), and Staffordshire oatcakes are a unique local delicacy to be discovered. 5

The Benefice of Holy Cross

• The rest of the parish becomes increasingly more economically deprived as it runs north-eastwards, and encompasses several 1960’s housing estates with highly significant pockets of deprivation, including families of asylum seekers, and the highest level of pensioner poverty in the county. The St second church in the parish, St Peter’s sits in the middle of this part of the parish. • Cycling is as easy as driving here, and the parish is within easy walking distance of good rail links to Lichfield, Birmingham, The Manchester and beyond. • We have easily navigable geography despite a relatively large parish population. • The Abbey is the setting for the world- • Holy Cross parish spreads north-eastwards famous ‘’ murder mysteries, and held from the bank of the Severn, with the shrine of local saint, Winefride, until the Shrewsbury town centre opposite on the reformation. The Guild of St Winefride is a westwards bank. growing international community of prayer • The most southerly point of this urban based at the Abbey. parish of 10,000+ residents has the first of • We have one PCC for the parish. the two churches in the parish, , a member of the Major Churches Network, and tourist destination for over

30,000, which is a relatively affluent, white, very elderly congregation in an area matching it.

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Services in the churches The Abbey has a choral tradition and most Sundays Sundays in The Abbey makes use of an excellent robed choir at 10:45 am 8.30 am Morning Prayer and 3pm Evensong. 10.45 am Choral Eucharist 3.00 pm Choral Evensong The Abbey also hosts county wide services with the Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire and other civic groups on a regular basis. Sundays at St Peter’s The Abbey has a world-class William Hill 1911 1st, 2nd 9:30 am Eucharist organ which is currently in the process of major 4th refurbishment and restoration. 3rd 9:30 am Morning Prayer There is morning prayer daily at 8:30am with the 5th 10.30 am All-ability service with service Guild of St Winfride and a midday Eucharist on users from town-wide disability groups Thursdays.

St Peter’s has a more relaxed Eucharistic or Lay led service at 9:30am on Sundays.

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The Benefice of Holy Cross

St Peter’s Church & Parish Your Training Incumbent

Hall Revd Dr Tom Atfield St Peter’s church is a warm, welcoming and 1 Underdale Court, Shrewsbury, SY2 5DD comfortable 1930’s mission church. The modern • parish hall dates from the 1990’s and is next to the Trained: The Queens Foundation • church on site. It has kitchen facilities and hosts Ordained: 2011, Diocese of Worcester • weekly coffee and chat for the community and a Curacy: St , monthly weekday service and tea for people living Bromsgrove • with dementia and their carers. It also hosts a Vicar: since 2019 weekly knitting group, a mother and toddlers group, and a prayer and discipleship group. Tom is a former special educational needs teacher. Shrewsbury Abbey The County Church of Shropshire, The Abbey is a thousand year old Benedictine foundation which was largely destroyed by Henry VIII leaving only the chapel belonging to the town standing, the current parish church. Heavily rebuilt in the Victorian era to mixed results, the church still retains Norman pillars and stone carving, and now has a small kitchen and He builds ministry teams and values ministry from toilets in the building. It hosts a number of concerts across the breadth of churchmanship and and large events each year. theological opinion. He welcomes the ministry of everyone regardless of their sexuality or gender.

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The Context The latter of which is very noticeable in the schools in the parish. The congregation is drawn from both Shropshire moves from rolling farmland in the east Salopians (people from Shropshire) and retirees to dramatic mountainous terrain on the border with from elsewhere. Wales. It is geologically and historically interesting, and its topography features on the medieval ‘Mapa Parish history is complex, caused in part by an Mundi’ of the known world. assumed historical tension between the need to maintain and grow the Abbey in its county-wide Despite outwards appearances, Shropshire is also role and the need to further the pastoral and one of the top ten deprived regions in Western missional role of both the Abbey and St Peter’s to Europe, comprising mostly of small agricultural the parish. There is an urgent challenge to settlements with little access to transport links or encourage, build up and engage the parish in what amenities. Towns and neighbourhoods are God is calling it to do. The green shoots of this are frequently highly resilient and cohesive, but also beginning to show. We are forming a resistant to change. comprehensive and energised team comprised of Shrewsbury, an historic market town near the Welsh paid staff and volunteers and beginning to find border is becoming increasingly diverse through strategic opportunity to outreach both in the parish emigration from London, Birmingham and and beyond. elsewhere, aided in no small part by good transport links and a lively town centre, with more The Ministry independent shops on its high street than anywhere We are blessed with a team of Readers and retired else in the UK. There is a thriving arts scene, an clergy, each with much to offer a new colleague and established LGBT history month and growing who are all engaged in their own distinct forms of networks of alternative ecological and political ministry to different groups. Added to this, we have groups. a paid community officer who is engaging with schools, colleges and more at both churches and Holy Cross Parish straddles the line between providing helpful administrative and marketing Shrewsbury’s diverse and affluent town centre and support. We have growing links with three primary its low-social mobility deprived neighbourhoods. 9

The Benefice of Holy Cross

schools, a secondary school a sixth form college. plenty of opportunity to pick up strands of this and One morning you could find yourself taking part in explore further areas for mission, and have the a county service for 400 people, including the experience of organising people to do the same. mayors, MP’s, Masons and similar, then in the There is great potential for a curate with liturgical afternoon helping a local family find the funds to and musical interest to input on our growing keep their children fed. The current opportunities programme of music and find new outreach are diverse. opportunities using this. The Abbey also has a We are in the process of leading both churches into long-established “open door” outreach programme new missional opportunities, and this will have to Shropshire schools with sees hundreds of created new forms of activity and new expressions primary school children visiting the abbey each of church by the time a curate may arrive in 2021. year. In 2020-2021 we are piloting an expansion of Our parish’s motto for 2020 is simply “God is calling this, and there will be ample opportunity for any us to mission” and we are spending this year additional clergy in the parish to help develop this identify and planning for new forms of mission and scheme from 2021 onwards. outreach. A curate arriving in 2021 would have In addition to these local opportunities, any curate based in the parish will have access to the training We’re really grateful for all the support we got from the Diocese, starting with the DDO, and networking opportunities for curates in the who went out of her way to help in finding a good match, and to work out practical Major Churches Network. There is also an Anglican matters. chaplaincy being developed in the nearby My vicar has been very supportive, through planning carefully together and weekly Shrewsbury University Campus providing further supervisions, where we reflect on different areas of ministry. I have been given new opportunity and the possibility of later-curacy challenges progressively, all done sensitively and fitted to the stage I was at. Our placement there. churches have been so welcoming to the whole family, and very supportive of my ministry, even when this involves less regular ideas, like planting a tree during a sermon (only in a pot, I regret to say!).

Revd John Beswick Pallister

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Housing and Accommodation The Diocese of Lichfield either has a curate’s house in the benefice or a ‘strategic’ house for curates in close proximity of the benefice. These are good houses, mainly with four bedrooms. If there is no curate’s house in the benefice and where such a strategic property exists within easy reach of the proposed training parish this will be the preferred curate’s house. If there is no strategic housing available nearby the diocese is committed to providing appropriate accommodation for all those entering ministry. We generally do not offer rented accommodation except as an emergency short term measure. Our curates can be confident that their home will be of a consistently high standard. If you wish to know further details about the house, the DDO will be able to provide you with more information.

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Curacy in Lichfield Diocese

Pattern of training Supporting learning and formation The programme focuses on grounded and situated Curate learning, formation and development is learning and prioritises the Diocese‘s focus on strongly valued and affirmed in Lichfield Diocese. Discipleship, Vocation and Evangelism: Curates receive ongoing supervision and reflection on ministry in the parish, complemented by our • In Year 1 establishing you in your new curate-training programme in which you share with ministerial context and practice, and your year-group of peers. The aim of the training supporting your preparation for ordination programme is to enable each person to flourish in as priest. their ministry and inhabit more deeply their • In Year 2, deepening your practice and vocation as deacons and priests. This programme understanding of mission and ministry with supports learning and formation through a the theological tools and skills you need to partnership between the Diocese and The Queen’s contextualise this. Foundation. And it takes place in the context of • In Year 3 helping you prepare for life-long parish supervision and reflection on ministry. ministry and to take up a post of responsibility to be entered into with skill The programme provides space and an and confidence. environment beyond the parish context in which curates come together with skilled tutors to learn with and from each other’s shared experience, so that they can better integrate their practice and reflection, develop their personal qualities, spiritual, ministerial and professional gifts and skills, and deepen their desire to learn.

The curacy experience is very much a collective one, often gathering at Lichfield Diocese’s centrally-located Shallowford House for study, prayer, retreat and de-stressing with peers: as such, it’s a much less scary venue during IME2 than as a base for a BAP!

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IME2 to equip for ministry

At the heart of the programme are residential Many second year curates have the opportunity to grow through visits to our link in Canada, events which bring together a year-group of Africa, or Germany– this group enjoying a day on curates. They reflect the diversity of the Church, safari. while the different ministry contexts reflect the diversity of the Diocese. This cohort is the primary context for the essential learning and formation to develop your ministries, focusing on ministerial formation, and on the development of relationships which enable mutual flourishing for all. Opportunities for academic awards Care for curates and families Alongside the IME2 training you may wish to The wellbeing of clergy and their families is very continue studying on an accredited pathway with important to us. In addition to the supervisory Common Awards. Curates who already have a aspects to curacy, we have a free, confidential Diploma award from IME1 may register for a BA in counselling service (the Listening Ear scheme) for all Theology, Ministry and Mission. Others who clergy, diocesan staff and their families. already have a degree or higher award or are recognised as potential theological educators have More info opportunities to further their studies alongside their – contact the DDO (details on back cover) or visit curate programme. Lichfield.anglican.org/curacy

“We have had amazing support from the diocese over the past 6 years through both of our curacies and that’s not always been straightforward- particularly when ‘life’ sometimes gets in the way!

“But the support, through thick and thin has been fantastic, particularly discerning Adam’s call to pioneering ministry and curacy under ‘pioneer’ supervision.”

Revds Adam & Charlotte Gompertz 13

Curacy in Lichfield Diocese

For further information In the first instance, please contact:

The Revd Romita Shrisunder, Bishops’ Director of Ordinands Holy Cross, Shrewsbury 01543 306220 [O] 07949 033091 [M]

E-mail: [email protected] Shrewsbury Abbey

and

Find us on: St Peter’s, Monkmoor AChurchNearYou:

Shrewsbury Abbey

achurchnearyou.com/church/19495/

St Peter’s https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/4492/

Website: http://www.shrewsburyabbey.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shrewsburyabbey

Twitter: @shrewsburyabbey

Instagram: @officialshrewsburyabbey

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